An Iranian supertanker, which had delivered 2 million barrels of crude to a ship-to-ship transfer offshore Indonesia, is en route to return to Iran’s Kharg Island after entering the Strait of Hormuz through the U.S. blockade, TankerTrackers.com said on Tuesday. A very large crude carrier (VLCC) owned by the Iranian national company departed Iran in late March 2026 and traveled to the Riau Archipelago in Indonesia, where she transferred 2 million barrels of crude oil to another VLCC, according to vessel monitoring data by TankerTrackers.com.…

The Middle East war and the crisis at the Strait of Hormuz could redraw the global energy map as world’s most critical oil chokepoint is no longer seen as a reliable route for oil and gas supply, says Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Iran war and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz have shown the world that the Strait has lost its status of a reliable energy export route, Birol told Turkish newspaper Dünya. As a result, the crisis could lead to the global energy flows being redrawn,…

The United States is looking to increase its exports of crude oil and natural gas to India—the world’s most heavily import-dependent nation. As such, India is a tasty morsel for any producing country with extra barrels. Yet there is a reason that the U.S. is not already a major supplier to the subcontinent—there are simply too many obstacles on this course. Last week, Washington’s ambassador to New Delhi, Sergio Gor, said on X that he’d met with India’s energy minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, to discuss “Expanding…

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that traders had ramped up bearish bets on oil prices, with traders pouring nearly $1 billion into the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (SCO), a leveraged bet on falling prices following war-driven highs. This massive buildup in bearish sentiment came shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 2-week ceasefire on April 7, which sent oil prices plunging nearly $20 per barrel from recent highs. And now fresh reports have emerged that something far more sinister could be lurking in financial…

China looks to further boost its footprint in neighboring Asian markets as the energy crisis is straining fuel supply to Southeast Asia. As the region became the first victim of the fuel crunch due to the Middle East war, Cambodia broke ground on its first gigawatt-scale hydropower project to boost its renewable energy output and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. The start of construction at the Upper Tatay pumped storage hydropower BOT project could not be timelier as the Iran war is reducing fuel supplies to Cambodia and other Southeast…

The oil market is heading into unknown spaces. To paraphrase Starship Enterprise, “Oil markets ('Space' the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”. As we can now see, there is a moment in every crisis when the language of markets, which is normally based on price discovery, marginal barrels, and supply-demand balance, quietly but dangerously stops making sense. For the oil…

I was recently fueling up my wife's car in Tempe, Arizona when I noticed something I hadn't seen in a while: an "I did that!" sticker pointed at the price on the pump. Those stickers were everywhere during the gas price spike under President Biden. Now they're back — with the same message, but a different president. It’s true that fuel prices have spiked under both administrations. But the reality is more complicated than a sticker on a pump suggests. To understand what really happened, you have to look at the underlying market forces…

Inflation is expected to jump to 3.3 per cent as the first effects of the war in Iran will be recorded in a new set of data. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is expected to reveal that inflation inched up in the year to March due to soaring fuel prices and tremors across financial markets. Economists polled by Bloomberg predicted that the consumer price index (CPI) inflation print would come in at 3.3 per cent, compared to three per cent for February. The acceleration in price growth could dampen hopes of improved stability, posing a challenge…